GIS Development Staff
The 2nd Annual Conference and Exhibition on GIS/ GPS and Remote Sensing was jointly organised by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions (CSDMS) during 24-26 August, 1999, at Hotel Intercontinental, New Delhi. More than 500 national and international experts, academicians, information technology and management professionals and scientists from various parts of the country attended the conference. The delegates discussed various issues and uses of mapping technology and its application in various sectors such as, power, urban development, environmental mapping, water resources, GPS, telecom, agriculture, natural resource management and disaster management. The theme of the Conference was “Evolving National Spatial Information Policy”. The conference was addressed by ISRO Chairman, Dr. K. Kasturirangan, former Union Minister of Science & Technology and Power, Prof. Y. K. Alagh and FICCI President Mr. Sudhir Jalan during inaugural session.
Dr. M. P. Narayanan, President of CSDMS, welcomed the participants. While delivering his welcome address, Dr. Narayanan underlined the objective of the conference, which was to focus on mapping technologies and attract GIS companies worldwide to India. He said, GIS, which has basically been evolved as a technology to enhance the level of decision making can be used for more integrated and comprehensive planning for the development of this country. The motivating force for CSDMS in promoting the application of GIS in this country is the benefit of the common man for which this technology can be exploited.
In his keynote address ISRO Chairman, Dr. Kasturirangan, stressed on the establishment of National Spatial Information Infrastructure (NSII), which would aim to promote and establish an infrastructure at the national and regional level, for the availability of organised spatial and non-spatial data and multilevel information networking to contribute local, national and global needs of sustained economic growth, environmental quality and social progress. He said that India should have a National Spatial Information Policy to use the enormous natural resources data generated by the remote sensing satellites for the development of the basic amenities. Dr. Kasturirangan said that NSII would involve in collection, dissemination and use of spatial information and the trends that will push society towards a “Spatial Thinking Process”.
The former Union Minister for Planning & Programme Implementation and Science & technology, Prof. Y. K. Alagh, in his guest of honour’s address, appreciated India’s progress in space technology and its application in various areas but, he said in some areas progress is still required, especially in the field of agricultural development. He indicated these possibilities in the field of agro-climatic planning for land and water development and crop planning and also short-run crop forecasting, which is very important for market and policy analysis in a liberalising economy.
In his inaugural address, the President of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Mr. Sudhir Jalan suggested preparation of zonal atlases for the entire country, so that industrialists going to set up units in different areas would be guided by environmentally relevant information.
He stressed the need of putting maps of various industrial estates in the country on the web with details of plots available for different types of industry. This would help an investor in any part of the world to plan well before investing. He said that there is a need of extensive use of GIS in business as it can help in the economic growth of the country. Mr. Sudhir Jalan also inaugurated the exhibition.
The conference honored Dr. George Joseph, former Director, Space Application Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad for his distinguished contributions in the field of space and aerospace sciences. Ms. Santosh Yadav, the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest, was also honoured for her outstanding achievements and extensive use of maps and latest geographic information technologies during her historic climb.
An exhibition on GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing technologies was also organised parallel to the conference. More than 20 renowned companies and NGOs including National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO), Department of Science and Technology, National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) and Department of Space took part in the exhibition. The Exhibition was highly successful. There was a great degree of enthusiasm among the Exhibitors and it was found that almost all companies were represented by their senior executives. The Exhibitors at Map India ’99 were: AGIS/Del NORTE Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd., Bentley Systems Pty. Ltd., CADD Centre Scanning Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Central Pollution Control Board, CSDMS, ESRI India, HOPE, Integrated Digital Systems, Kampsax India Limited, Mekaster International Pvt. Ltd., National Atlas & Thematic Mapping Organisation, National Remote Sensing Agency, Department of Space, PCI Geomatics, Rolta India Ltd., RMSI, Samtech Engineering Pvt. Ltd., Sierra Optima Ltd., SGI – India, Survey of India, and Tata Infotech Ltd.,. The best exhibitor’s award went to ESRI India.
During the three days of the conference over 70 technical papers were presented by several academicians and experts from the industry. The theme of various technical sessions included technology trends, power, urban infrastructure, environmental mapping, NRIS, water resources, spatial information policy, GPS, disaster management, telecom and agriculture. Ajay Lavakare, Managing Director, RMSI was awarded as the best paper presenter in the Conference. Tata Infotech organised ‘MapInfo User Conference’ parallel to the conference.
In total six Workshops were conducted at the Conference on different themes e.g.:
- Workshop on Remote Sensing was co-ordinated by NRSA.
- Workshop on GIS for Junior and Middle Level Managers in Municipal Corporation was also held in Hindi along with the conference. Mr. Scott Gibons, Municipal Management Advisor, Mirzapur coordinated the workshop.
- Workshop on GIS Applications in Power Sector was divided into two sessions. The first session was inaugurated and chaired by Shri R. P. Singh, CMD, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd., the second session was chaired by Anil Razdan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power.
- Workshop on GPS and its Application was also held in two sessions, the chairmans for both the sessions were Dr. Govind, Deputy Director, Department of Electronics and Mr. K. Ramalingam, Member (Planning), AAI respectively.
- Shri Bhagat Singh, Central Relief Commissioner inaugurated the Workshop on Disaster Management, keynote address was given by Mr. K. V. Venkatachary from ISRO and the workshop was chaired by Shri Anil Sinha, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, which was divided into two sessions.
- Workshop on Water Resource Management happened to be the longest in the Conference, in which almost 15 papers were presented. Mr. Z. Hasan, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources was the Chief guest of the workshop, Keynote address was delivered by Mr. A. D. Mohile, Chairman, Central Water Commission. The workshop was divided into three sessions. Mr. R. S. Prasad, Member, Central Water Commission, Dr. S. K. Sharma, Member, Central Ground Water Board and Mr. Shrikant Pathak, Vice President, Tata Infotech chaired the sessions, respectively.
Besides these workshops several other technical sessions were also organised covering different themes in which eminent scientists and industrialists presented their papers.
The session on Technology Trends in GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing was chaired by Associate Prof. George Cho, University of Canberra, Australia.
Technical session on Environmental Mapping was chaired by Shri V. K. Chunna, Member, UP Revenue Board. He was also the guest of honour for Urban Planning and Infrastructure Management in which keynote address was delivered by Mr. V. Suresh, CMD, HUDCO. Mr. Prabhaker Mishra was the co-chairperson. Dr. A. N. Banerjee, Former Chairman, Hindustan Zinc Ltd. chaired the session on National (Natural) Resources Information System.
An interesting session was organised on Spatial Information Policy, which was chaired by Mr. N. Vittal, Central Vigilance Commissioner and co-chaired by Brig. R. N. Shrivastava, Survey of India.
A panel discussion was also organised on Evolving a National Spatial Information Policy. Prof. V. S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Dr. N. Seshagiri, DG, NIC, Dr. A. R. Dasgupta, Dy. Director Space Application Centre, Mr. Rajendra Pawar, Vice-Chairman, NIIT Ltd., Lt. Gen. S. M. Chadha, Eicher Goodearth Ltd., Mr. Shrikant Pathak, Vice-President, Tata Infotech and Dr. M. P. Narayanan, President, CSDMS were the eminent panelists of the discussion. Map India ’99 witnessed great degree of interaction among the participants about the concerns of the technology and issues related with the growth of the industry.
Recommendations of Map India’ 99
The conference came up with recommendations, after great degree of deliberations among the participants, which are being followed by the organisers.
- Formation of an Empowered Group
The Map India ’99 conference recommends the setting up of an empowered group to study and prepare a draft National Geographic Information policy for implementation by the government. This group shall be led by a non-government person, and shall also have representation from the government, NGOs, academic institutions and defence. - Formation of industry confederation in GIS and Remote Sensing
There shall be confederation of concerned industries and institutions to formulate and advocate policy guidelines for the effective utilisation of mapping technologies. The NGOs such as CSDMS, which are dedicated to the cause of promotion of GIS, shall be given the responsibility to co-ordinate the projection of the cause and concerns of the GIS community before the government and act as a pressure group in policy conceptualisation and formulation. - Every data collection activity funded by the taxpayer’s money shall include ‘Data Dissemination’ as a part of its mandate
Many of the data generating agencies do not have the mandate for data dissemination. This creates a situation where valuable datasets are held with various government agencies because of the lack of the mandate. The Conference recognises that dissemination of data collected by taxpayer’s money should be a rule rather than exception. - The immediate review of the existing policy on Aerial Photography
In India, aerial photography is governed by the policy of restriction. All the aerial photography is classified as ‘secret’. It is laid down that the permission of the Ministry of Defence has to be obtained at the time of flying, after completion of photography, and before release of photographs (or maps) to the user. The policy of restriction in Aerial Photography may be reviewed on a priority basis and a more ‘user friendly’ policy shall be adopted. - Review on restriction policy on maps
All maps of the border and the coastal belt are ‘restricted’, and hence not easily available to private companies. The Restriction Policy is a major obstacle, and it slows down infrastructure development in these areas. The conference observes that the government may implement the recommendations of the ‘TG-Map Committee for Map and GIS Data Policy’, which was approved by the Committee of Secretaries under the Cabinet Secretary. - Development of Data Standards
There is no common standard for reference systems, scales, degrees of accuracy, and data structures for developing base maps and value addition to these maps across the various departments of the government in the country. Different organisations develop their data to different specifications. It would be useful to define the standards. Care should be taken to adopt international standards so that data can eventually be shared at regional and global levels. The Government agencies in consultation with NGOs, institutions and the industry may work to evolve data standards for geographical information. - The year 2000 be declared ‘The Year of Maps’.
There is an important need to create awareness about the maps among the masses. This can only be done by a sustained campaign in which importance of maps in every part of life is emphasised through different media like TV, radio, magazines, newspapers etc. Quizzes, discussions, map-reading competition, map-books and software promotions may also be organised as a part of awareness programme. To increase the visibility of the role of maps the conference recommends that the first year of the next millennium shall be declared as ‘The Year of Maps’.
